FORT COLLINS – Colorado State athletic director Jack Graham is a fan of Moby Arena. The 46-year old arena was there when Graham attended CSU and he wants it there for many years to come.

“I like Moby,” Graham said. “I really do. It was here when I was playing football. I think it’s a great facility.”

It doesn’t, however, mean the subject of changes to the home of CSU men’s and women’s basketball as well as volleyball hasn’t already been broached. It has. But any additional alterations to the almost 8,800-seat venue – which would be skyboxes – are on the back burner until its inhabitants, particularly men’s basketball, can establish a consistent base of sold-out or near sold-out games.

“Eighty-eight hundred seats is enough right now,” Graham said.

“Lets fill that thing up, and after four or five or six years of packed houses then we can talk about whether we should make it into a larger auditorium. But I love the intimacy of Moby. We’ve done things with the concourses, we’ve put a Hall of Fame into Moby, we have put a great reception hall into Moby. And we’re going to brand Moby; we’re going to start telling our story.

“So, it won’t be done this year but next year, for the 2013-14 basketball season you’re going to see the stories of Colorado State University. Not just basketball, but the university’s history. Because so many people show up, it’s a great venue for us to tell that story.”

Graham, who is already spearheading a movement to raise $126 million for a new football stadium, has made getting attendance up at Moby a priority this season. Men’s basketball, with high-profile coach Larry Eustachy, is the focal point with the understanding that he expects bigger crowds for every team that plays in Moby. Once that happens, Graham said, expansion can then become a more viable conversation.

“If we were to do anything in the future and put in some sky boxes, we could do that,” Graham said. “But right now let’s take this next step. Let’s turn ourselves into a perennial top 25 basketball program, both men’s and women’s, and let’s pack the house, create a secondary market for tickets where people are spending $250 to get in, let’s do that first and then we can have a conversation on whether we should expand the arena.”

Changing habits. This year, Colorado State found out that just hiring a marquee name as a head coach doesn’t mean the fans come automatically come with it. The football team has averaged 22,332 fans at Hughes Stadium this season, about 68 percent of the capacity of the stadium.

While with two home games left that is up from the 21,867 average of a year ago, getting fans to Hughes this season has been tough. And almost none jumped both feet in just because of the hiring of Jim McElwain, formerly the offensive coordinator of national-champion Alabama.

It’s the same with basketball. Season ticket sales are up 11 percent from a year ago, but no one is happy about the 1,790 figure so far – especially new coach Larry Eustachy, who expressed his displeasure about lackluster ticket sales on Wednesday.

In both cases, Graham said the key, beyond putting a good product on the field/court, is getting fans into the habit of going to games instead of staying home.

“I expected to see a bump in our football attendance this year just because of the buzz and excitement that Jim McElwain brought to the program, and we didn’t get it,” Graham said. “At the end of the day it’s habits; people have a habit of not showing up because good athletics on the floor, they haven’t seen good football in the stadium and so they are just not in the habit of showing up.

“Until we do start to demonstrate that we are putting consistently competitive teams on the floor, in the stadium, and delivering results and we’re giving them a great game day experience. You go into Moby and you’re not just sitting there watching a basketball game, but its fun and it’s engaging. Kids can show up and they get stuff, funny things happen and you’re on the Jumbotron and stuff like that. Let’s put a show on the floor and let’s make it fun. Those are the things that we’re going to start investing in so that people really do feel like they aren’t there just to have a basketball experience, they are also there to have a lot of fun.”

Tradition city. This year has seen an increased CSU athletics commitment to pageantry and tradition. CSU has stories to tell and fun and interesting experiences to provide on game days, Graham said.

“We’ve done a lot with pageantry and game-day traditions to let people celebrate Colorado State and not just sit and watch a football game,” he said. “We have one of the best bands in the country, one of the best cheer squads – I really have an incredible amount of respect for our cheer squad and our pom-pom girls. They put on a great program. We now ring the gong, the bell, on third and fourth downs and people get wrapped around the acts and they make noise. Those are the kinds of things that do make a difference. So we’re going to do more and more of those things. Its one bite of the apple at a time, you can’t do it all at once. But I do feel we have the leadership in place inside the athletic department to enable those kinds of things to start to show up.”

Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com

Its funny to see such a blow hard realize that just because you have some cash and played ball there it doesn’t mean you know anything about being an AD. Great football hire on the surface and I hope it works out, but Graham will be a polarizing disaster that won’t last more than 3-4 years. You can’t just come into a D1 AD position, especially at a struggling school who has had no fan support even when they were good, and bully people into doing something different because you want them to. The stadium is a great vision, but they are several years ahead of their ability to get it done.

Dan M

Drove up from Denver to see the basketball opener. Impressed with the upgrades made to Moby and it was a fun evening all-around. The online ticketing system is a big improvement over past years.

csu fan from up north

The attendence would have been way higher if someone hadn’t decided to start all the home games at 5 pm. That is a long ways from a college tradition of saturday afternoon football games. Maybe some thought should be on the fans that do more than buy a ticket that have to travel several hours to get to the game.

Byrdie

Revenue is the name of the game. Start ‘em when people might get more hungry and buy overpriced food and drink, that is if they even come. The ‘average’ fan is not of interest for ‘big time’ football programs. So forget about ‘tradition’ because what CSU might have from the past is no longer relevant for the present and near future.

heynow

hey graham i can tell you i will not pay $250 per game. You must be smoking pot way
ahead of the new law. Go back to private life or get one. Dont take it out on us fans
who have been here for 40 years. GO BACK TO BOULDER with those ideas

Kensler joined The Denver Post in 1989 and has covered a variety of beats, including Colorado, Colorado State, golf, Olympics and the Denver Broncos. His brush with greatness: losing in a two-on-two pickup basketball game at Ohio State against two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.